


Rough Awakening

by theScrap_Witch



Category: Linked Universe - Fandom, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, First Meeting, Gen, Linked Universe, Lon Lon Ranch (BOTW), does Time have enough trauma?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24998536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theScrap_Witch/pseuds/theScrap_Witch
Summary: Link closed his eyes, slept. His dreams were soft and blank. No warning of what was happening as magic shimmered and shifted the land around him. No warning for what was to come.Bird song woke him up. Sweet, cheerful, a happy sign that all was well.Everything he saw around him was wrong. Ruins. His home was nothing but ruins.
Comments: 20
Kudos: 146





	Rough Awakening

The storm had come out of nowhere. One minute, Link had been on his way home, following the well-worn path from the woods to Lon Lon Ranch. Then the sky had suddenly dumped what seemed like all the water in Hylia Lake down upon his head. Lightning crackled across horizon. He left the path, taking shelter in a nearby cave. 

The sudden summer storm didn’t bother him. It was just a small detour, a pause in his journey. He’d made camp in the woods - in that very cave - during other storms before this one. There was no lurking danger, no darkness or shadow to make him wary. His feet were happy for the break.

 _I’ll just wait out this rain,_ thought Link, settling in the cave. The summer night was warm, so there was no need for a fire. His ocarina was in his bag, and he debated playing a song to send the storm away. No. He promised himself that he wouldn’t meddle with that magic unless it was absolutely necessary. Malon would wonder, but not worry. She’d keep a candle burning in the window, a light to help guide him home.

 _Old fashioned way, then._ How many times had he done this, both as an adult and a child? Catching a quick moment of peace in the rain? _An hour,_ he told himself. _An hour of rest and then, rain or no rain, I will return home._

Link closed his eyes, slept. His dreams were soft and blank. No warning of what was happening as magic shimmered and shifted the land around him. No warning for what was to come. 

Bird song woke him up. Sweet, cheerful, a happy sign that all was well. _The storm must be over,_ he thought, opening his eyes.

Everything he saw around him was wrong. 

It was the middle of the day. The sun, which was starting to set when he closed his eyes, was now high in the sky. The cave was gone. Instead, he was lying on a small mound, surrounded by a few sparse apple trees. The rest of the woods had vanished, replaced by endless fields of long, green grass.

 _Where am I?_ he thought. Years of adventure and battle kept him outwardly calm, kept his thoughts from scrambling in panic. He looked around, trying to make sense of the new world surrounding him. Slowly, as he stood up, he started to make out familiar landmarks. Pieces of the world were still the same. That tree with the notches on its lower branch is one he carved as a child, though its trunk had grown bigger. The path from the woods was still there, meandering through the fields, following the same curved route that it did before he fell asleep. 

It looked like his home, but changed. _Like -_ his thought suddenly stopped, like his brain was trying to protect itself from a horrible, terrible truth. He forced himself to put it all together. _Like my home has gone through years instead of minutes. But that was impossible. All I did was sleep -_

Deja vu hits him ( _pulling the sword - falling asleep - seven years gone where is my world where did my world go, Navi? -_ )

No. 

Not again. 

( _How long was I asleep for, Navi?_ )

Nonononononononononono-

He ran, off the mound and past the trees and down through the field. If there were dangers or monsters nearby he didn’t see them. Didn’t care. His eyes were on the path home. ( _why is it so worn where are the signs - the horses - Epona -_ ) Each step built up more and more dread. He could choke on the fear in his lungs. His heart was praying, screaming. 

( _pleasepleasepleasepleasenonononononononopleasepleaseplease_ )

He reached the ranch - 

He reached what is left of it. 

Ruins. His home was nothing but ruins. 

( _\- where has the world gone, Navi?_ )

Ice filled his bones, his veins. Ice clogged his heart as he stumbled towards where a house should be. The gate was gone, the sign faded, moss covered and crumbling. The barn was gone. The tower had been split, destroyed. Everything had been taken over by weeds. Patches of the land were burned, the earth scorched. There were no horses or cucoos or cows. 

No people.

“Malon?” he whispered. 

Nothing but the wind answered back.

Maybe this was a dream. Maybe he was still in the cave, asleep. It was a nightmare, that’s all. Just a nightmare. 

( _please, Hylia, please. not again not again not again please_ )

He grabbed the ocarina out of his bag. His fingers shook, but the tune was so deeply etched in his memory that they could still create the notes. The Song of Time. He played, desperate. _Take me back,_ he begged. _Take me back to my time. To her._

Nothing. The music was just music, a pretty tune with no magical power. 

Link tried again. And again. Nothing still. He tried other songs, desperate for some magic. Something. Anything. He played the Song of Healing over and over and over, as though that could heal his heart, somehow magically bring everything - bring her - back. 

The nightmare around him did not change. 

He threw the ocarina down with a scream. It didn’t break. 

Link shattered. 

“MALON!”

He screamed her name, over and over. He screamed until his voice broke. He stumbled, collapsed onto the ground. Onto the ruins of his - their - home. 

His heart kept screaming. 

How long? How long did the gods put him to sleep for this time? ( _one year? seven? one hundred?_ ) The ranch looked like it had been ravaged by a war. ( _was Malon caught in the crossfire? Is her body still there, underneath rubble? Or has everything he loves decayed to dust?_ ) Did the gods hold him back to defeat whatever evil did this?

 _Ganon’s hatred will be nothing compared to mine,_ he thought, murderous, blasphemous. _If the gods have brought me here for battle, then I will fight. I will destroy whatever evil is here and then I will march to wherever they are hiding and turn my blade on them._ The Fierce Deity mask was in his bag, and for once he was glad he kept it in his possession. 

He stood up, his heart too broken for tears. There was a power to hate, a fuel that burned in his heart and gave him a poisonous sort of strength. He understood now how Ganon could have been driven by it. 

_Tell me why, Hylia._ Fear and grief twist with fury. _Give me one reason - one fucking reason - why I shouldn’t tear you and this blasted world apart?_

The howl of a wolf cut through his grief, startling him out of his spiralled thoughts. 

Link looked up to see a wolf. Black fur, strange markings in-between piercing blue eyes. Eyes that were locked on him. 

_Go on_ , thought Link, eager for some sort of fight. He stared back at the wolf, daring it to attack. _Go on, try me._

It did not bare its fangs. Instead, there was a haze of dark magic, the sound of a form changing shape. Link blinked and the wolf was gone, replaced with a young man, his light brown hair a mess, armour worn beneath a wolf-pelt. There was a sword strapped to his back. 

He had the same eyes as the wolf. 

_I’ve seen those eyes before,_ he thought, even though he knew he hadn’t. _Why do they look so familiar?_ They looked at Link with a mix of emotions: sadness and pity and awe and love. 

They looked like Malon’s eyes. 

“It’s okay,” said the boy. His hands were up, weaponless, a gesture of peace. He moved slowly, like Link’s a fairy he was afraid to spook. “Everything’s okay.”

Link nearly laughed. _No, it’s not._ His home was gone. Malon was gone. Nothing would ever be okay again.

“My name is - “ the boy stopped. Tried again. “You can call me Twilight. I’m from a different world. Like you. This world is not yours - or mine - no matter how much it looks like it is.”

That broke through the hatred. For the first time since he woke up, Link could breathe. “Another world?” he repeated. Hope, fragile and faint, flickered in his heart. “This isn’t Hyrule?” There were a lot of other questions Link should have been asking. Who was this strange boy, who could use dark magic to shift from human to wolf? What world was this then, and how could Twilight be so certain that it was not Link’s home? But he needed this to be true. 

“Not your Hyrule,” said Twilight, his eyes earnest and bright and pleading with Link to believe him. “I promise.”

“You’re sure?”

Twilight nodded.

Link stood straighter, every emotion pushed down. If this was another world, then Malon was alive. Malon was safe, with Talon and Epona and the ranch. Hylia had granted him a small mercy. He would not seek revenge against the gods. ( _as long as they return him home. as long as they return him to her_ ) 

_I will do what must be done_ , he promised himself. _One last task for Hylia. Then, I will put down my sword for good. Just wait for me a little longer, Malon._

“Thank you,” he said. He tried to give Twilight a smile. He has made allies with stranger folk before. A shapeshifter would not make the top ten of his list. “I was…disoriented. My name is Link.” 

“I know,” said Twilight, his eyes both infinitely kind and sad. “Let me take you to the others. Then, I can explain more.”

He led Link away from the ranch ruins, and on toward to a new adventure. 

**Author's Note:**

> Just a small bit of angst for Time, to add to his collection of trauma.


End file.
